UPDATED Expectations were moderated after the king of the keynotes stepped aside for what he admitted yesterday to be health problems. But at a quieter, gentler Macworld, the crowd did get something to take home.
Top Stories
Computer security fuels many excellent conferences. CES is not typically one of them, but the current state of the economy is compelling conference goers to refocus on their core priorities...and security is one of them.
Motorola puts a green jacket on a carbon-neutral handset
January 6 - 5:42 PM ET
In the latest attempt to assuage consumers into buying more new stuff by telling them it's good for the environment, Motorola has announced a cell phone that it says is made out of recycled water bottles and is carbon-neutral.
3 Comments...
Microsoft elevates Bob Muglia's role in a changing company
January 6 - 5:30 PM ET
The man who brought new life to the Server and Tools division, and who now challenges Ray Ozzie as the future prince of company keynotes, is being rewarded with an upgrade to his role that places him on a par with Dr. Qi Lu.
1 Comment...
Microsoft claims Xbox 360 sold 8 million worldwide
January 6 - 4:18 PM ET
Once again just before CES week, Microsoft is claiming victory in the game console race, at least against rival Sony PlayStation 3. And once again, veteran analyst Sharon Fisher pores over the numbers.
8 Comments...
Lenovo intros multimedia PCs for gaming, dual-screen laptop
January 6 - 3:16 PM ET
With the exception of the high-end, business-oriented ThinkPad W700ds, all of Lenovo's product rollouts at this week's CES 2009 will be aimed at consumers, company officials told BetaNews.
3 Comments...
New HP Pavilion notebooks go for style, go with AMD
January 6 - 2:12 PM ET
UPDATED HP has had a reputation for delivering sturdy, competent, but unexciting hardware without a lot of pizzazz in the marketing department. As folks used to say, if HP was selling sushi, they'd market it as "cold, dead fish."
4 Comments...
Samsung goes solidly green
January 6 - 1:00 PM ET
At this week's Storage Visions 2009 Conference on Tuesday, Samsung announced that it's preparing to ship a 100 GB solid-state drive with fresh green credentials.
1 Comment...
HP sets fire to Voodoo DNA with sleeker Firebird desktop
January 6 - 11:59 AM ET
UPDATED If the venerable desktop PC platform has any real "homebase" of customers left, it's in the enthusiast market where "cool" refers more to looks and performance rather than, say, CPU temperature.
7 Comments...
Disgruntled IT guy fells blogging site
January 5 - 8:40 PM ET
It's better than having some jerk walk back in with a gun, but it's sure not good: The journalspace.com blog site has shut down after a "disgruntled" former IT employee used his own data-backup choice to obliterate its entire data store.
20 Comments...
January phish buffet: Now with IRS
January 5 - 2:46 PM ET
As regular as tax season itself, phishers pretending to offer information on an IRS "stimulus payment" are targeting thrifty (or is that greedy?) taxpayers.
1 Comment...
Samsung announces HDTVs with Yahoo Widgets
January 5 - 2:16 PM ET
The broadband-connected television market will be in full bloom at CES 2009, with Samsung announcing that its newest lineup of HDTVs will sport "Internet@TV", a Yahoo-powered widget interface.
2 Comments...
RIAA: MediaSentry relationship had already ended
January 5 - 1:30 PM ET
In the second "deflation" of a Wall Street Journal story in as many months, an RIAA spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews this morning that the termination of its use of the MediaSentry service had already happened.
1 Comment...
Netflix and Amazon On Demand come to even more
January 5 - 11:26 AM ET
Amazon today announced that owners of the formerly Netflix-exclusive Roku set-top box will be able to access Amazon Video On Demand, and LG announced it's building Netflix instant streaming directly into some of its upcoming HDTVs.
Apple's FileMaker launches revamped Mac and Windows database
January 5 - 11:07 AM ET
At Macworld today, Apple's FileMaker, Inc. subsidiary will launch a major overhaul of its flagship database for Mac and Windows desktops and servers, a product used by 70 of the world's Fortune 100 corporations.
1 Comment...
So it was a health problem after all, admits Steve Jobs
January 5 - 9:48 AM ET
Addressing the recent announcement that he will not deliver the Macworld keynote this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs released a statement this morning about his mysterious health condition.
74 Comments...
Twitter twormented by phishers
January 5 - 6:47 AM ET
UPDATED A phisher or phishers operating over the holiday weekend deluged Twitter users with direct messages designed to steal sign-in information. A second, unrelated compromised dozens of high-profile accounts and spewed rude fake messages.
8 Comments...
CES Countdown #4: Who's securing the CE device's end user?
January 5 - 5:56 AM ET
Computer security fuels many excellent conferences. CES is not typically one of them, but the current state of the economy is compelling conference goers to refocus on their core priorities...and security is one of them.
CES Countdown #5: Are the world's digital plans killing mobile DTV?
January 2 - 4:48 PM ET
Here's a very familiar theme for us every year: Despite not only manufacturers' own best efforts but also certain governments' own regulatory bodies to drive and even enforce industry standards, there's no one way to do digital mobile TV.
2 Comments...
CES Countdown #6: Can the PC adapt to the commodity business model?
January 2 - 1:25 PM ET
With the consumer economy changing radically and rapidly, Microsoft and others are experimenting once again with applying the pay-as-you-go model to computing, since it seems to work well enough for other industries.
4 Comments...
CES Countdown #7: Will someone please do something about battery life?
January 2 - 11:06 AM ET
Vendors at CES 2009 will be displaying some interesting new workarounds to the persistent issue of short battery life, ranging from an "ECO On Mode" in MSI's Wind U115 netbook to a solar battery charging gadget from Energizer.
9 Comments...
Web rates UK Web ratings proposal an 'F'
December 31 - 6:24 PM ET
Every so often, the Web provides a form of entertainment that almost everyone can enjoy -- a punching bag. Enter Andy Burnham, the UK Culture Minister, and his recent musings on a movie-style ratings system for the Internet.
19 Comments...
123 Flash Chat Server Software for Windows 7.0 Beta
January 6 - 4:43 PM ET
123 Flash Chat Server Software starts with a 100% pure Java server, making it a cross-platform application with reliability and high load support. With the 100% pure Flash client, it provides a skinable interface and improved speed over regular chat. It can fully integrate your existing user database, with an auto-login feature. PHPDB, PostNuke, PHPNuke, VBulletin, and more databases can be integrated and chat modules are available for you to download. I supports moderated chat, Ad banners, low port and hight load. With a fully multi-threaded communications engine, it can support hundreds of chat rooms and thousands of visitors without any degradation in response time.
123 Flash Chat Server Software has the following other editions available: 123 Flash Chat Server Software for Linux.
Windows 2000/Me/XP
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.6
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.6
Quicksys RegDefrag 2.2
January 6 - 4:22 PM ET
Quicksys RegDefrag is a freeware utility to defrag your registry. It optimizes registry by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows registry files. The defragmentation improves performance and boosts access to the registry.
Quicksys RegDefrag has the following other editions available: Quicksys RegDefrag Portable Version.
Windows 2000/2003/2008/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.1
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.1
AutoGK (Auto Gordian Knot) 2.50 Alpha
January 6 - 4:01 PM ET
AutoGK (Auto Gordian Knot) is a DivX / XviD backup utility. With support of DVD sources and other MPEG2 sources (such as DVB captures and transport streams) encoding into your favorite MPEG4 format was never as easy as now.
Windows 2000/2003/9x/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.4
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.4
TVersity 1.0.0.10 RC6
January 6 - 3:40 PM ET
TVersity let's you stream media from your PC to almost any device that connect to your home network. For example you can browse photos, music or movies on devices like the PS3 or XBox 360. While some devices already allow streaming usually the formats supported are quite limited. It supports virtually any file you can play on your PC.
Windows Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
CloudBerry Explorer 1.2 Beta
January 6 - 3:19 PM ET
CloudBerry Explorer makes managing files in cloud easy. By providing an industry leading user interface to Amazon S3 accounts, files, and buckets, CloudBerry lets you manage your files on cloud just as you would on your own local computer.
Windows 2000/2003/2008/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
Not Yet Rated
License: Freeware
Not Yet Rated
XP Codec Pack 2.4.6
January 6 - 2:58 PM ET
XP Codec Pack is one of the most complete codec packs which helps you to play all major audio and video formats. And to complete your multimedia experience, instead of 3 or 4 different players you get one simple integrated player that plays almost all audio and video files: Media Player Classic.
Windows (All)
License: Freeware
User Rating: 2.9
License: Freeware
User Rating: 2.9
XeroBank Browser 2.9.1.2
January 6 - 2:37 PM ET
XeroBank Browser allows you to surf the Internet anonymously. Download Torpark and put it on a USB Flash keychain. Plug it into any Internet terminal whether at home, school, or public. Run Torpark.exe and it will launch a Tor circuit connection, which creates an encrypted tunnel from your computer indirectly to a Tor exit computer, allowing you to surf the Internet anonymously.
Windows (All)
License: Open Source
User Rating: 3.9
License: Open Source
User Rating: 3.9
EmEditor Professional 8.02 Beta 2
January 6 - 2:16 PM ET
EmEditor is a text editor for Windows that supports JavaScript or VBScript macros, Unicode, plug-ins, syntax highlighting (including embedded scripts in HTML, ASP, and PHP files), drag-and-drop, and menu and keyboard customizations. This release supports not only JavaScript and VBScript for the text editing macros, but also PerlScript, PHPScript, Python, Ruby, and other languages as long as script engines you want to use are installed.
Supports macros and advanced features.
Windows 2000/Vista/XP
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.9
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.9
Serv-U 7.4.0.0
January 6 - 1:55 PM ET
Serv-U is a powerful, easy-to-use, award-winning FTP server. An FTP server uses the FTP protocol to share files across the Internet. It is not only 100% compliant with the current FTP standard, but also includes numerous features that make it a perfect file sharing solution for virtually everyone. Regardless of the purpose behind your FTP server, everyone will benefit from the numerous security features Serv-U incorporates. When you're using Serv-U, you'll be able to: Restrict directory & file rights, Deny or allow IP addresses, Monitor user actions in real-time, and Log all commands from users. Security settings are customizable for each user and group.
Windows (All)
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.7
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.7
save2pc 3.42
January 6 - 1:34 PM ET
save2pc is a free tool that downloads videos from Youtube or Google Video and saves it as Avi or Mpeg or Flv file to your local computer. It allows you to easily grab and save desired youtube video. The user interface is very simple, so you don't need any technical knowledge to use it. No need to use scripts for web browsers.
Windows (All)
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.2
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.2
Virtual CloneDrive 5.4.1.4 Beta
January 6 - 1:13 PM ET
Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard-disk or from a network drive and used in the same manner as inserting them into a normal CD/DVD drive.
Windows 2000/9x/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.7
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.7
KDE 4.2 Beta 2
January 6 - 12:52 PM ET
KDE is a powerful graphical desktop environment for Unix workstations. It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of the Unix operating system. It is an Internet project and truly open in every sense. Development takes place on the Internet and is discussed on our mailing lists and USENET news groups to which we invite and welcome everyone. No single group, company or organization controls the sources. All sources are open to everyone and may be distributed and modified by anyone subject to the well known GNU licenses.
Unix
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.0
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.0
FlashFXP 3.8 (3.7.7 Build 1318) Beta
January 6 - 12:31 PM ET
FlashFXP is a powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client loaded with features for the power user. It has an intuitive user interface that takes only minutes to master. Using the FTP protocol, you can transfer files from remote servers to your computer, or even to another remote server. It makes it easy to update your Web site, download files from the company server, or even download files from the internet that always seem to fail using your Web browser. It allows you to transfer files between two sites (FXP), resume incomplete downloads, synchronize directories, schedule multiple tasks, and more.
Windows 2000/2003/9x/XP
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.9
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.9
Eraser 6.0.3.847 RC3
January 6 - 12:10 PM ET
Eraser is an advanced security tool, which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
Windows 2000/2003/9x/XP
License: Open Source
User Rating: 4.0
License: Open Source
User Rating: 4.0
MediaCoder 0.6.2.4242
January 6 - 11:49 AM ET
MediaCoder is a free universal audio/video batch transcoder, putting together lots of excellent audio/video codecs and tools from the open source community into an all-in-one solution, capable of transcoding among different audio/video formats with many extra features.
Windows 2000/9x/Vista/XP
License: Open Source
User Rating: 3.9
License: Open Source
User Rating: 3.9
